Below are various studies showing the strength and value of the arts as a tool for education and workforce development. These can be used as a tool to advocate for the arts in your community, and for grant writing objectives as well.

The NASAA provides valuable insights and research for the Arts and Culture organizations. Click on the NASAA name to the right to visit their website.

THE RESULTS OF AN 18-MONTH U.S. GOVERNMENT STUDY ON THE VALUE OF ARTS EDUCATION, HAVE BEEN RELEASED (MAY 2011), AND ARE LINKED TO BELOW:

The study was conducted by the President’s Committee on the Arts & the Humanities (PCAH), and consisted of firsthand observation and research (with test schools) which have clearly shown:

1. Schools are dramatically improving test scoresand fostering their students’ competitiveness in the workforce by investing in arts education strategies, even in the toughest neighborhoods.
2. Arts education provides a critical benefit to the private sector. To effectively compete in the global economy, business leaders are increasingly looking for employees who are creative, collaborative and innovative thinkers.They are looking for students who can think outside the box.

The CVI (TM) is a robust and inclusive measure of the economic vitality of the arts and arts activities in a specified geographic or political region of the United States. Rigorously constructed and updated annually, a region’s CVI is a credible and clear data source for arts research and advocacy purposes.

U.S. GOVERNMENT STUDY ON 25,000 STUDENTS. IMPACT OF ARTS ON LOWERING DROP-OUT RATES.

It should be noted that an earlier longitudinal U.S. government study of 25,000 students, published in 1998, showed that students who are involved in the arts stay in school (i.e. have lower drop-out rates), and perform better, than students who do not, even accounting for socioeconomic status:

_______________________________________________________________________________Acts of Achievement- The Role of Performing Art Centers in Education (2003)This Dana Foundation publication provides the first study of K–12 education programs offered by performing arts centers nationwide, and showcases 74 performing art center institutions, large and small, partnering with their local schools.

Authentic Connections: Interdisplinary Work in the Arts (2002) This publication—crafted by the Consortium of the National Arts Education Associations—is designed to assist and support educators in interdisciplinary work and to clarify how the arts can be taught with integrity through interdisciplinary content standards. It has been prepared for teachers in all disciplines, teaching artists, administrators, teacher educators at the college level, and parents.

Learning and the Arts: Crossing Boundaries Those who fund arts and education programs gathered in January 2000 to review the connection between learning in the arts and preparing for a new knowledge-based economy, to review current research about the cognitive and behavioral assets arts education develops, and to distill the ways of thinking that the arts teach. Made available by Grantmakers in the Arts.
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_______________________________________________________________________________Transforming Ideas for Teaching and Learning the Arts (1997) This U.S. Department of Education booklet is designed to give teachers some of the latest ideas about how arts principles and concepts can best be understood, taught, and used in the classroom to improve instruction in the arts and other disciplines.
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Involvement in the Arts and Success in Secondary School (’98) (Americans for the Arts Monograph, November 1997, Volume 1, Number 9) This summary of research by Dr. James S. Catterall, UCLA Imagination Project, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, reveals how involvement in the arts is linked to higher academic performance, increased standardized test scores, more community service, and lower drop-out rates regardless of socioeconomic status.

Forty Action Strategies – 40 proven strategies used by volunteer and professional arts advocates from around the country to help increase the visibility of the arts and strengthen support for the arts among the public and with public officials.

The Arts in Public Policy – The message for advocates should be clear: government spending on the arts fares better when legislators understand how the arts can advance their own policy agendas. When you know how to put the arts on the public policy agenda, arts funding turns out to be everyone’s business.

In addition, a report in Soundpost (vol. 17, 1990, p. 21)states that “students who take arts courses tend to have higher scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) than those who do not.” It continues by saying, “the more arts courses a student takes, generally speaking, the higher his or her SAT scores.”

The growth of the creative thinking ability and cultural awareness of students (and adults), nurtured by the arts, is quickly becoming the vanguard for building a stronger workforce of the future that is capable of innovation and problem solving. The arts promote a way of thinking that is inventive and competitive.

Arts and Sciences are really flips sides of the same coin. How? Science is all about acquiring knowledge and information through experimentation and observation. These usually include modelling, illustration, simulations etc… These activities often require some level of raw artistic ability in and of themselves. But above and beyond that, who comes up with the ideas for the experiments and information quests to being with?….

…. The Creative Thinker! The Innovator! The person who can think and imagine outside the box of accepted conventions.

So how, then, do we teach Creativity? How do we nurture the Innovator?

Through the arts. It is precisely what the arts are all about. The arts, in all it’s forms, instill a desire to create and think in innovative ways. The arts are all about thinking outside the box. The arts teach a way of thinking that encourages exploration and discovery.